Catie

I have just joined a conference call at work and I’m waiting for it to get started. It doesn’t look to be a very exciting call. One of those calls where either my manager or myself should be on the call, but not both. So I take a peek at facebook on my phone to check in on my niece Catie’s status.

She’s dead.

I reread the post from my sister in law a few times to make sure there's no misunderstanding. There is none. My body heaves. The call continues.

I am struck by the emotion. Surprised in a way since we long ago knew this day was coming. Satisfied in a strange way that the well of emotion is there. I think of my brother and his wife and of Catie. The call continues. It is about time to call it a day.

I bike into our apartment complex and see our Ayi wandering aimlessly. This means Elisa is somewhere around. I find her with two other little girls maybe a year older than her. They all have scooters and are chatting excitedly. The two elder girls take off and in their wake Elisa notices me. She says “Baba, I’m playing now” and she takes off after the elder girls. A moment, at her precise age, as I wrote a few posts back that I won’t be able to recapture no matter how hard I try.

It is in the same breath that my prevalent memory of Catie returns. She was somewhere between Elisa and Lydia’s age and riding her bike in front of her parent’s house. She riding with such a rate of speed and abandon that one can only assume joy was her companion. But I didn’t need to assume, I could see the smile on her face. It was at this point that one of her siblings told me she could barely see.

My brother’s family’s journey with Batten’s was just beginning then even though the genetic story had long been written. My image of Catie is one of denial, I realize, as I never did get very comfortable with the teenager and then woman she became. I just hung onto the memory of her has a little girl, with reckless abandon, fearless of the light.